


Trust

by ultharkitty



Series: Portals AU [3]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: M/M, Non-Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Spark Sex, Sticky Sexual Interfacing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 11:49:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7572991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultharkitty/pseuds/ultharkitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a nice Vortex from a parallel dimension got trapped in his universe, Swindle took full advantage. Now his own Vortex is back, and Swindle wants that fresh start he's been promised. But there's a little voice of doubt about Vortex's intentions. And Vortex certainly has a plan.</p><p>This is set directly after the end of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/222603">The Adventures of Mirrorverse Vortex</a>. </p><p>Contains explicit enthusiastic sticky and non-sticky, a not-entirely-healthy relationship, comfy restraints, and trust issues. </p><p>Massive thanks to <a href="http://9arco95.tumblr.com/">9arco95</a> for commissioning this :DDDD This is my first writing commission, and it was so damn satisfying to write. I love this pairing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trust

Swindle stomped through the sultry warmth of Combaticon HQ. Vortex was with Onslaught, apprehended the moment his plug touched the welcoming bare metal of Swindle's port, hauled off to a stupid debriefing the second his fingertips brushed the tip of Swindle's nub. In an act of oblivious cruelty, Onslaught had dragged Vortex away, leaving Swindle sprawled panting in the desert dust, overheating and over-wrought, while Brawl rolled around laughing at him.

Swindle kicked open the door to his quarters and threw himself on the sofa. Then he rolled off the sofa and stormed into the bathroom. It was far too long since they'd had to quit Combaticon HQ for repairs. It was about time he had his own rooms back, his marble and glass, his precious metals and soft textiles. He glared at the fixtures and fittings, the Earth-made luxury he had bought himself - had bought for every one of his team. So what if high quality energon was in short supply; there was so much he _could_ give them. 

But did they know how to show gratitude?

He spun the taps on the sunken tub, snarling as the oil took a moment to come. He tapped his fingers on his thigh until the trickle became a stream, and then a torrent.

Excess charge coursed through his circuits and he bent double, snarling at the emptiness in his valve, the swirling impatience of his spark.

He closed the bathroom door and pinged the computer to draw the blind back from the skylight. If he had to suffer, by Primus he was going to do it in luxury.

Sunlight streamed through coloured glass, little prisms casting rainbows like the Crystal Gardens in long-lost Praxus. Swindle sniffed and forced a deep intake of air. Warm garnet glinted from the domes of the taps; the hot desert sun glistened from the surface of the oil.

He kicked up the aircon and melted into the pool. Why did this have to happen to him? Couldn't Onslaught have waited one more breem? Swindle could be squirming on Vortex's cord by now, mouth and hands fully occupied, speeding to a hearty overload. He could be tight in the rotary's arms, pressed up against the hot metal wall, those claws dangerously close to his seams.

He shivered, parting his legs and watching the oil lap up his thighs. He opened his valve cover, sloshing liquid over his tingling array. It sluiced the desert grit, and went some way to soothing the ache.

He could have had the nice Vortex... He rolled his optics at himself. The nice Vortex, so naive, so easy. So kind. He would have made a pliant companion. Someone cosy to come home to. 

Only he couldn't really, could he?

Onslaught would never have accepted him in the true Vortex's place. And even if he had, the nice Vortex would never have agreed to stay.

Swindle’s own Vortex would have killed him.

Had tried to kill him.

Swindle lay his head on the smooth marble rim of the tub, and focused on the sway of oil against his seams as the pool slowly filled. Vortex could have been here with him, enjoying the fruits of Swindle's labours, leaning over him, looming in that thrilling, threatening way of his, that wicked smile on his lips, his cord sliding swift into Swindle's valve.

Groaning, Swindle palmed his spike. Would Vortex want him after Onslaught? Would he still carry that fierce jealous urge, that possessive fire that had, for one brief moment promised everything Swindle wanted that he couldn't just take for himself?

Would Vortex even be conscious? If Onslaught chose to assert his authority... Swindle bit his lip. Vortex would be satiated, stuck in repairs again, the edge worn temporarily off him.

Swindle sighed, thumbing the tip of his cord as the oil reached his grille. He leaned over and turned off the taps. When he settled again, his hand did not return to his equipment.

What if Vortex had planned it? Vortex and Onslaught, plotting together to teach him a lesson. It wouldn't be the first time.

Swindle drew the covers over his vents, and sank into the pool. 

* * *

He awoke in the dark. Not the dark of a desert night, star-spun and crisply cold, nor the dark of the underwater base, cloying and close and full of strange noises. This was a buoyant dark, a cosy pleasant dark interrupted only by the occasional muffled sound.

It was the kind of dark he welcomed. Swindle could think like this, could relax and gain a little perspective. He resisted surfacing, even after his memory banks had fully booted. It was night, and the oil had cooled to the approximate temperature of his armour. He shouldn't stay submerged too long, but another few minutes couldn't hurt.

He wriggled his fingers, and flexed his ankles. He stifled a laugh as a current of cooler oil passed over his exposed valve.

Stretching to ease the aches from his linkages, he wondered if Onslaught had finished with Vortex already. Was he lying alone and bored in the medbay? Would the pain and the drowsy satiation make him more willing to continue what they had started? Or was he sprawled open and spent on the palatial recharge platform Swindle had bought for Onslaught, half on Onslaught's lap, perhaps, sharing a post-coital laugh at how horribly they had both made Swindle suffer.

Clenching his fists, Swindle risked a glimpse into the team bond. And relaxed. The bond was closed, the others present as a dry list of vital statistics. All alive, all present at HQ, all asleep save one.

Swindle surfaced, reaching for a towel to wipe the oil from his face.

"You took your time," Vortex commented.

Swindle stumbled with a splash, his spare tire hitting the edge of the pool. "How... how long have you been here?"

"Long enough," Vortex replied. His optics gleamed, his brand new paint-job glowing in the starlight. His visor was off, his optics dim. He was sitting on one of Swindle's recliners; he must have brought it through from the lounge. As Swindle watched, he stood, the shadowy blur of his fingers lengthening as his claws extended.

"Are... you, um." Swindle coughed, and grabbed another towel. He hauled himself dripping from the pool, unable to stop himself backing away.

"What's the matter?" Vortex said, his rotors catching the starlight. They were still. 

"Nuh... Nothing," Swindle stammered. "Nothing at all." His heel hit the wall, his frame beginning to heat. He opened his vents, hauling in air.

"You look nervous." Vortex swayed closer, slowly, and Swindle was able to make out the faint line of a predatory smile.

Swindle's valve clenched, his cord half pressurised. He froze as Vortex advanced, the first touch of the rotary's energy field spreading a queasy, thrilling shiver. The tap of his claws on Swindle's hip made his spark churn.

"You're not frightened, are you?" Vortex cooed. His talons skittered over Swindle's chest, raking through rivulets of oil. "Whatever could you have to be frightened about?"

A shudder ran the length of Swindle's frame. He leaned back against the wall, the towel falling from his hand. "I meant it," he said. "Earlier. I meant what I said. I wasn't playing you."

Vortex pressed close, optics brightening. "Not even once?" he whispered.

"Not once!" Swindle fought to stabilise his ventilation. "Not even once, I promise."

"What are your promises worth?"

"Gold," Swindle said without thinking. "Electrum. The best energon you'll ever taste. The best of everything."

Vortex tilted his head. "You think you need to buy me."

"Frag! That isn't... Yeah, OK, I tried to buy my way back with you after the..."

"After you sold us."

"You said it was time for a new approach!" Swindle wailed. With effort, he met Vortex's glare. "Can't we start again?"

Vortex looked down into his optics, the bond seeming to glow a moment, stabbing at his spark. "You don't trust me," he stated.

"What the frag do you expect?!" Swindle bowed his head, rubbed his eyes. "That's not... don't go, please. That's not what I was trying to say."

But Vortex hadn't tried to leave. Vortex hadn't even taken his hand from Swindle's hood. He traced a pattern in the oil. "I need you to trust me."

"I _do_ trust you."

Vortex gave a soft laugh. "That's the last one," he said.

"The... last?" Swindle swallowed.

"The last lie you'll ever tell me."

Swindle opened his mouth to protest, but Vortex pressed an oily talon to his lips.

"The _last one_ ," he said. "Hush now."

The whisper rocked Swindle to his core, sending a spear of heat through his interface hardware as fierce as the dread that gripped his spark. He focused on the warmth of the talon on his lips, the subtle irregular flaring of Vortex’s energy field. The team bond opened briefly, a momentary flood of data. Swindle caught Vortex’s attentiveness, his jealousy. His calm anger and determination. And something else. Something fleeting and unfamiliar. It tugged at his core and prompted a bitter taste at the back of his mouth.

“That’s better,” Vortex said, still gazing into his optics, still wearing that promising, terrifying smile. His rotors swayed, and he took on a stillness Swindle knew all too well. It was the calm before the pounce. 

“Please!” Swindle gasped, but Vortex was already making his move, was picking him up and spinning him around, and Swindle landed heavily over Vortex’s shoulder, slipping a little from the clinging dregs of the bath oil. A rotor blade thwacked his cheek, a hand clasped his aft. His panels slammed shut by reflex, and his spike butted painfully on the inside of its cover. 

Swindle hissed as Vortex steadied him, then they were off, and Swindle tried the team bond to Blast Off, to Brawl. Just to tell them Vortex had taken him. Just in case the little voice of caution screaming in the back of his mind was right. 

There was no use trying to get free. Vortex had the advantage: strength, size, speed, a willingness to hurt in order to win, a disregard for his own personal safety. When they were new to Earth, they used to train together as a team, exploring each others’ skills, each others’ weaknesses. Swindle had learnt a lot about Vortex in those months. A lot about himself. 

The spare parts incident had put a stop to their sparring, but Swindle still recalled the thrill of fear, of uncertainty, lying prone under Vortex at the end of a fight, waiting for Onslaught to call in Vortex’s favour, not knowing whether it really would stop there. And the buzz of excitement, the way he couldn’t stop it from revving his engine. The way Vortex couldn’t help but notice. 

He should have made a move before. He shouldn’t have waited until Megatron put a bomb in his head and he had to buy his colleagues back. He should have gone to Vortex with a crate of high grade after a long, exhausting day before it all went to hell. Should have offered to polish his rotors or buff his chassis, or straight up crawled into Vortex’s lap and opened every cover he had. 

_I’m sorry,_ he thought, but if he said it Vortex would think it was a lie. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll find out,” Vortex replied. “Not far now. Turn off your optics.”

Compliance wasn’t easy. Had it been ‘bare your valve’ or ‘stroke my rotors’ or even ‘open the bond’ Swindle would already have done it. But the past months had not been easy; experience had taught him not to give Vortex that much of an edge. 

Vortex hefted him further onto his shoulder. “Are they off?”

Swindle swallowed. 

“We’re trying something different,” Vortex said, “remember? It’s not gonna be like it was. Now turn off your optics.”

Venting deep, Swindle weighed up the options. It was a game (but what if it wasn’t?). He shook his head to dislodge the voice of caution. It _was_ a game, it had to be. Onslaught needed the team to be strong, he needed the rift to be mended, the hole in the team bond closed (then why had Onslaught taken Vortex away from him earlier?).

Swindle shoved the thought aside. This was a wager, a risk. An investment - his spark, his frame, given as collateral against his future happiness. Not just his happiness. His future. Their future. Winner takes all, and he _had_ to win Vortex back. 

“They’re off,” he said, the sudden darkness at once uneasy and thrilling. He tried to cling to his determination, to make that sing through his energy field, but all he broadcast was tangled nonsense, an extension of the conflict in his frame. 

“Relax,” Vortex whispered, and it came with a subtle flare of his own energy field, a little ripple of promise. Swindle shivered. He’d felt that before, in long evenings of teasing without fulfillment, in the moments Vortex chose to build him up, then leave him hanging. But it also rang of earlier days, before Defensor had reduced his team to spare parts. When they were new on Earth, full of life and vibrant excitement. When they’d pushed their new frames to their limits. 

When Swindle had been allowed to watch Vortex at work. 

He bit his lip, his innards snarled in a knot of anxiety and lust. 

Finally Vortex paused, and Swindle heard him type a code into a lock. He tried to get his bearings without calling up the building’s data net. Vortex would know if he did that. Probably. It wasn’t worth the risk. 

A light breeze washed over him as the door opened, and it carried the scent of high grade along with the odd, empty smell of a freshly constructed apartment. 

Vortex’s quarters, it had to be. At least it wasn’t the interrogation suite, or the cells. Not that Vortex was averse to taking his work home with him. 

Swindle wanted to kick himself. It was no use feeding his own fears. 

He gasped as Vortex swung him off his shoulder and onto something soft and yielding. Swindle fought the urge to scoot back and sit up, and managed to force his limbs to stay exactly where they fell. 

“Well done,” Vortex whispered, so close that Swindle flinched. Vortex gave a soft laugh. “You kept your optics off,” he said, his energy field pulsing warm and tingling over Swindle’s cheek, then his lips. Swindle waited, hoped for the kiss that ought to follow, but instead a weight settled either side of his head, and he could feel the warmth of Vortex’s frame as the rotary leant over him. 

“Wh-” Swindle began, but his words were lost in a haze of static. He rebooted his vocaliser and tried again. “What… what do you want me to do now?”

“You’re going to talk to me,” Vortex said. 

Swindle shivered. “Um, what, uh-”

“We’re going to play a little game,” Vortex said, the warmth of him moving slowly down. “I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to tell me the truth.” The warmth focused a moment on Swindle’s codpiece. “Every time you tell me the truth,” he said, his energy field passing through the cover to ripple around the tip of Swindle’s spike, “you get a reward.”

“And, what…” Swindle coughed. “What if I don’t?”

“Why would you ask that?” Vortex said. “You’re not planning on lying to me, are you?”

“No! No, never. I… I just… What if I don’t want to answer?”

The tingling increased, and Swindle couldn’t help but arch, his spike beginning again to stiffen.

Vortex made a noncommittal noise. “Do you really want to keep secrets from me?” he asked.

“Oh frag no,” Swindle sighed, reaching up to where he hoped Vortex would be. But he got only so far before a hot hand wrapped around his wrist and slammed it into the softness above his head. Before Swindle could formulate a response, something cooler snapped around his wrist. “Hey, what are-”

“Hush now,” Vortex interrupted. “I’m the one who gets to ask the questions.” 

Swindle gaped, tugging on the cuff. It was lined with leather, thickly padded with no hard edges. Just like the cuffs sitting in a box back in his room, the ones he’d had made specially in hope he could encourage Vortex into them. He had time to realise that they weren’t just like his cuffs, they _were_ his cuffs, before Vortex trapped his other arm above his head, and moved down to his feet. 

_Wait!_ he wanted to say, but the recharge mat juddered with Vortex’s movements, and besides, what could he do? He was already chained (like a prisoner, perhaps, like he’d imagined in all those x-rated insomniac hours), and he wasn’t exactly uncomfortable. Did he want a safe word, like some soft-sparked Autobot? He yelped in surprise as Vortex rolled his aft high and propped it on a cushion. His legs spread by reflex, the chains shortening to hold them open. 

Swindle’s engine whined. He wanted to see where this was going, wanted to see the realisation of his hopes at least once on this miserable planet. 

“Are your optics still off?” Vortex asked, although he must have known. 

“Yes,” Swindle answered, and the purr of Vortex’s engine went right through him. 

“Very good,” Vortex said. More pressure on the pad, between Swindle’s outstretched legs. A sudden wet heat on his valve cover made him moan. The rotary’s energy field pressed in. “Do you trust me?”

“Gah! I… I’m working on it!” Swindle blurted, bucking his hips. 

“Well done.” Vortex spoke against the metal, the vibration of his voice more than Swindle could take. He moaned, and let the latch come loose. The cover spiralled open, his valve still wet from the oil bath. Vortex vented over it, warm and steady. “Do you want me to touch you?”

“Yes! Primus yes, please I want you to touch me!”

“Did you beg that pale imitation of me to touch you?”

“What?” Swindle only just managed to keep his optics off. “What kind of question is that?”

“It’s one you’re going to answer,” Vortex said. “Did you beg him?”

Swindle let his head drop onto the soft covers. Had he begged? He’d been confused, rattled, hopeful. He’d wanted Vortex more than anything, and the other rotary, he’d been so easy, so sweet, so slightly off balance in a way Swindle had always hoped to see. “No… not, not really, kinda. It just happened. I… I didn’t beg. I didn’t need to beg.”

Vortex vented over the wet curve of his nub. “What _did_ you do?”

“I… I thought he was… I wanted him to be you.” Swindle flinched inwardly at how close that had been to a lie. “I wanted him to be you so badly I made myself think he was you. I thought… you could do that, you could fake it that well, be that innocent, be… things could be that easy between us.” He clenched his denta as a solid wet warmth flicked the tip of his nub. “Please!”

“Then what?” Vortex urged. 

“Then… Then I showed him that recording! I… I couldn’t stand it, seeing you flirt with anything that moved, watching you frag your way through the crew. Anyone who wasn’t me, right? Frag!” Swindle vented deep, cranking his cooling systems up a notch. “So I gave him that high grade I got for you, I showed him the recording. The one we made so you’d follow through. I...“

Swindle had time to enjoy the briefest of licks before Vortex whispered, “Then what?”

“Then I… we… we interfaced, OK? We screwed.”

This time the contact was longer, a luxuriant slow lick across and around his nub. But all too soon it was over. “Tell me what happened.”

“It was an interface, you know what happened? Frag me, please! You know I want you, don’t do this to me.”

“Uh-huh,” Vortex cautioned, and the recharge pad shifted as he brought himself up across Swindle again. “You don’t make demands,” he said. “You need to be patient.”

“Patient! You want a blow-by-blow of how he fragged me? Is that it?” Swindle writhed, his fans whirring as his valve recalled the stretch. “You wanna know how it felt? You wanna know what we did?” He froze as Vortex pressed their lips together, stealing a kiss that lasted just long enough for Swindle to begin to reciprocate. 

“Tell me,” Vortex snarled, and Swindle’s valve clenched on nothing. 

“It was… It was normal, OK? He spiked me, and I loved it. I loved it cause I thought it was you, I wanted it so fraggin’ badly to be you. He did it slow, careful.” Swindle paused as Vortex moved. 

“Keep talking,” Vortex said, and Swindle swallowed. 

“He… got me revved with his fingers, and he spiked me and… And-” The words caught in his throat as Vortex went back to licking his nub. But it wasn’t just one teasing stroke, not this time. It was the kiss Swindle had wanted it to be, the luxuriant long licks around and over, his energy field lending a fierce thrilling edge, his fingertips smoothing leftover oil and Swindle’s own lubricants over the sensitised thin metal at the lips of his valve. 

“And he did what I wanted you to do,” Swindle moaned, stretching in the grip of the cuffs. “He stayed with me. He…” It didn’t matter what the nice copter had done. The fluctuations in Vortex’s energy field were precise, well managed. They were signals: a little buzz each time Swindle answered well, a flare each time he came close to what Vortex wanted him to say. What Vortex wanted him to be. “He didn’t leave, he let me go on top, he…” Swindle sighed at the growing liquid heat, the little pulses already signalling his readiness to overload. “He let me use him, let me make myself come on his cord until I couldn’t raise the charge, and I didn’t care that all the signals were wrong, I didn’t care about the bond or the glitching or anything as long as I could tell myself that he was you.”

This time Vortex didn’t stop. No new questions formed on the tip of Vortex’s roving tongue. Instead he suckled on Swindle’s nub, rubbing his tongue along the underside where the sensors clustered most tightly. Swindle tensed in the rush of wonder, the awed realisation that this time, maybe this time, Vortex might just be serious. 

Still, it was a shock when Vortex pushed two fingers (blunt, thank Primus) deep inside him and twisted, hooking up and stroking to catch his ceiling node. Swindle bucked, clenching his valve and rocking his hips to increase the pressure. He wanted to come, his frame wanted to come, but that note of caution that had earlier screamed at him to be careful was holding him back. He wanted to smash through it, but no amount of tensing and trying could pool together those lovely wonderful melting hot feelings and propel him to overload. 

Denta gritted, he whined in frustration, then gasped as the team bond opened. Determination, possessiveness, passion; they flooded his spark and made his processor reel. He focused on Vortex’s fingers and lips, on his tongue as it worked his nub in all the right ways. But it was Vortex’s presence in the bond, the snarl of vicious want, the fury of need, the cold and calculating will to make Swindle come undone that finally brought him to climax. 

It lasted longer than he could possibly have hoped, but was over in an instant. He collapsed panting, his spark swollen and aching, his cord straining free. His valve pulsed in ever-weakening contractions, his nub thrumming to the same rhythm. 

“Are your optics still off?” Vortex said, and Swindle could have wept when he gave a final lick and pulled ever so slightly back. Swindle’s valve tightened to keep those fingers buried deep, but Vortex drew them slowly out and a sultry wet noise just had to be him putting them in his mouth. 

“They’re off,” Swindle muttered. “I want to look at you. Let me… Please.”

“Not yet,” Vortex said, the team bond closing. “Mmmm, now what do we have here?”

“I don’t know, I can’t see.”

“Tetchy,” Vortex commented, venting softly over Swindle’s spike. “Tetchy mecha need to learn some patience. What happened after you fucked him?”

“Whu? Why? Frag, we went to sleep.” Swindle clung to the waves of pleasure still lapping through his interface hardware. He stifled a grin. “I… I woke him up with my mouth around his cord.”

“That’s a pretty picture.” The air continued to waft around Swindle’s equipment. “Would you do the same for me if I let you screw yourself silly on my lap?”

“I’d do the same for you right now,” Swindle said. 

This time Vortex’s laughter seemed less calculated, more spontaneous. There was a slight shift of his weight on the bunk, and a quiet click, a hiss of moving metal. “I haven’t finished with you yet.”

Swindle was prepared for a stretching fullness, for his cooling valve to be invaded, filled, fulfilled. He wasn’t prepared for a slick, strong hand to wrap around his cord. Vortex smoothed the lubricant the full length of Swindle’s shaft, his claws very clearly out. 

“This is an exercise in trust, remember?” Vortex rubbed lubricant over the tip, the flanges of his talons light against Swindle’s ridges. 

“I… How could I forget?” 

“What else happened between the two of you?” 

Swindle struggled to remember, pushing through the blocks he’d put on his own memory, swiping through self-created content warnings. This was harder to bring to mind, the aftermath of his bad decisions, the culmination of his self-induced glitching. “We screwed,” he said, gasping as Vortex began to slowly pump his cord. “We… that morning we found out who he really was.”

“But you already knew,” Vortex said, his pace slowing. 

“I… Yeah, I knew. I knew but I didn’t let myself realise. I… I know it sounds like a cop out.”

“It does.”

“You don’t know what it was like! The bond was going crazy, I kept getting glimpses of him and he wasn’t him, but he was easy and he was there and I didn’t know _where_ you were, and… Where were you?”

“Screwing Protectobots,” Vortex answered as though it should have been obvious. “If you’re a good little Jeep I’ll show you later. Now tell me, what did you do next?”

Swindle slumped, all his concentration focused between Vortex’s fingers. There was so little mental energy for anything else. “I commed him,” he said. “After the Autobots got a hold of him.”

“Why?”

“I was angry, I wanted to know. I wanted it to be you, _really_ you. I wanted it to be some black ops thing where you were pretending to be a… a screwed-up naive cog-headed fraggin’ Autobot version of you, OK? And I _knew_ it wasn’t. I knew he wasn’t you. But he was so fraggin’ receptive, y’know? And he was shiny and-” He stopped short of _I couldn’t help myself_. He could have helped himself. He was selfish and greedy, and the nice Vortex was easy in so many ways. “He was available.”

“You didn’t come after me.” The pace was tortuously slow, and if it wasn’t for Vortex’s free hand lying heavy on his thigh Swindle would have tried to move. 

Instead, he attempted an answer. “Ons was working on it. I didn’t know how to come after you. We can’t open those portals. We didn’t know what was happening.”

“You conspired with Brawl,” Vortex said. “You were going to abduct that rotary. You wanted to repaint him and train him and have him take my place.” The claws tightened, as Vortex rippled his energy field through Swindle’s cord. 

“It was ‘cause I wanted _you_!” Swindle wailed. “But I couldn’t fraggin’ have you!” His fans sped up, his spark churning. The claws were exactly where claws should not be, the flat flange pressed to Swindle’s thrumming, pulsing spike. It would only take the slightest of movements… “I didn’t even know if you were coming back! It was like there was a hole in my spark and it _hurt_ , and it was you-shaped, and he was the only damn thing that could fill it because you weren’t there!”

That slow pace continued, and Swindle’s engine roared in frustration. 

“You don’t believe me? You want me to trust you? You gotta trust me too.” He let the cover fall from his plug-and-port array. “Take a look, please! I’m not gonna hide anything from you, I won’t, I promise, just look!”

This time the flare of Vortex’s energy field was overwhelming. The pressure around his cord did not let up, but was joined by a wet compressive warmth that could only be Vortex taking him into his mouth. 

Swindle wailed in heated confusion, caught between lust and despair, between a heady frustration and dread that he had opened himself up so deeply. He had that sinking feeling that this was the beginning of the end, he’d given Vortex the key to his undoing, but with Vortex’s lips around his spike, his tongue drawing charge from every node, he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. 

But Vortex failed to take advantage, and as he continued to manipulate Swindle’s cord with a technique that made thinking nearly impossible, Swindle gradually began to relax. By the time his climax hit, he was putty in Vortex’s hands, lying limp like a pile of spare tires. 

When Vortex sucked him clean, he thought he might black out. 

“Stay with me?” he managed through the crackle of static. “I mean, let me stay?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Vortex said, and that predatory tone was back, the voice that had the potential to make Swindle melt as often as it made him want to run. More often. Something edged into Swindle’s valve, and it took him a second to recognise a fingertip. He tried to throw his legs wider although it was impossible, and his cord made a sluggish attempt at stirring. 

“Turn your optics back on,” Vortex said, and Swindle didn’t miss a beat. Vortex was looming over him, rotors quivering ever so slightly, optics blazing. 

“Primus...”

“Open for me.”

Swindle frowned, and looked down at the naked interface port on his hip, glanced in the direction of his valve and the finger gently stroking. “I… I am.”

Vortex pressed the palm of his free hand to Swindle’s chest. “Here.”

It was a stupid idea. It was the worst of all stupid ideas: give Vortex access to his spark, his engine, his fuel pump. 

Swindle swallowed: all or nothing. 

Looking up into Vortex’s optics, he brought his valve in tight around that questing finger, and let his hood slide slowly apart. 

Vortex grinning down at him was a picture Swindle never wanted to forget. That smile Swindle had seen so many times before, that attitude of _need, want, now!_ And all of it focused on Swindle, on the core of his being. 

A second finger edged into his valve, blunt now and edged with that beautiful energy field crackle. As Swindle’s chest parted and his sparklight spilled up, Vortex slowly scissored his fingers, urging him wider, bringing his attention back to his valve, and the fact that he had not yet been properly filled.

When Vortex adjusted position, Swindle’s spark began to swirl. When he withdrew his fingers, Swindle moaned and licked his lips, and held onto the fierce hope that this was what it looked like. What it had to be. 

Vortex entered him slowly, gradual shallow thrusts to seat himself inside. He was smooth at first, and wide, and frag Swindle wanted to see that go in. But all he could see was Vortex’s face bathed in the light from his spark. 

Then Vortex bent to kiss him, and Swindle melted. He wanted to wrap his arms around him, to grab his rotors and tease all those tiny sensors on the edge. He thrust himself into the kiss, letting Vortex lead, arching up against him, the pressure on his wrists and ankles only serving to remind him how open he was. How vulnerable. 

Frag, it felt good.

Thrusting deeper now, Vortex did something with his cord, some slight transformation because now there were ridges and Swindle couldn’t get enough of it. He bucked and squirmed, clenching on every beautiful inward motion, feeling his sensors light up with each momentary, fleeting connection. 

When Vortex broke the kiss it didn’t matter, Swindle was being massaged from the inside out and it felt amazing. Even better was the look on Vortex’s face, a predatory self-satisfaction, his energy field ablaze with desire.

Then he grinned in a way Swindle had never seen before, and dipped his head to Swindle’s chest. 

“Oh frag frag fragfragfrag!” Swindle tugged hard on his chains as Vortex pressed his lips to the corona of his spark. “You’re not meant to do that, you’ll burn yourself! Gah fragging Primus don’t stop! Don’t stop, oh frag I… _Frag_.” He was holding his valve tight, Vortex’s cord thrusting shallow, every single node and ridge sending clear pulses of pleasure right through him. But it was nothing compared with his spark, with the dangerous, glorious sensation of Vortex kissing the surface, his tongue dipping down through the corona. Swindle felt the corona swell, and wanted to yell out a warning, but Vortex’s lips were back against his, for a tantalising, relieving moment. Then Swindle was left with the taste of singed metal, and a sight he thought he’d never see outside of the medbay. 

Vortex had opened his chest, and was baring his spark. 

Words caught in Swindle’s throat, a whirlpool of ideas and fragments of ideas spinning through his mind. He couldn’t form a coherent question, couldn’t utter a welcome or a warning or even a query as to what the hell Vortex thought he was doing. All he could do was lie there and stare in wonder as Vortex did the impossible. 

Vortex’s cord stilled for a long moment, as he lowered himself into position. Then he began to roll his hips, and Swindle moaned loud and long as the beautifully augmented spike thrust over and over his sensitised nodes, just as their sparks reached out to each other, the gestalt programming signalling their proximity, urging them to further closeness. To merge or combine, it didn’t care. But Swindle cared. Swindle cared so much, and now Vortex would know that he cared, and it would change everything, but it had to be better than before. 

He lost himself in the pleasure of his valve, in the tendrils of his corona licking up like flames, like plasma, then twisting around, making spirals with the red-gold furnace of Vortex’s core. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there, knew the shape of them, the colour, could see them through Vortex’s eyes as the sparkmerge deepened and their perceptions synched. 

The insight was stunning: the air on Vortex’s rotors, the awareness of pressure and humidity, the knowledge of altitude and the background sensation of dormancy in a frame not in flight. Then the interface, the wonderful slick tightness of Swindle’s valve, the taste of him still lingering at the back of Vortex’s tongue. How wonderful it was to have him laid out, a meal to be savoured, a thing to be possessed and held and never let go. 

But there was more, and Swindle was dazzled by it. The need for team cohesion, the desire to keep Swindle close, but not just to frag him, not just to tease him and take him, but for his mind, his skills. For all the things Swindle could give them - all of them - and for all the ways they could be together. Could be compatible. If only they could make this work. 

“We _will_ make it work,” Swindle gasped, and Vortex cradled his head, pulled him up into another deep kiss, and this one lasted and lasted as the sparkmerge lingered and their shared perception sped them to overload. 

When it came Swindle thought his spark would burst. He thought it was a supernova, the bomb that almost went off in his head, that he was coming apart. He heard rattling and it was the clatter of Vortex’s rotors as he thrust hard one final time and came to stillness sheathed exactly where Swindle wanted him. 

Swindle hardly felt it when the cuffs came loose, only pursed his lips in sullen acceptance as Vortex gently withdrew from his valve. Stars floated across his optics, and he knew his chest was closing, that Vortex’s had as well. He knew he had the potential to grow cold now, in the desert night, alone. But Vortex tugged the pillow from under his aft and curled around him, warm and solid. 

“I like this new approach of yours,” Swindle said. He yawned, stretching a little, and managed to get his head to rest on Vortex’s arm. Vortex tugged him closer, and lightly nibbled the back of his neck. 

“Do you trust me?” he said. 

Swindle grinned, letting his optics power down. No lies, he thought. This was going to be a long journey. He let his energy field flare, a promise for the morning. “Let’s call it a work in progress?”


End file.
